Cheap booze

Getting (a wee bit) dearer

A minimum price for alcohol is unlikely to affect drinking habits—for now

IT IS always faintly worrying when a trade association calls allegedly crusading legislation a “pragmatic solution”. On January 18th the sigh of relief with which the Wine and Spirit Trade Association greeted government plans to impose a minimum price on alcohol in England and Wales was almost audible. Less than a year ago, in their coalition agreement, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had pledged to ban the sale of alcohol below cost price. In the event, they have settled for banning sales of drink for less than the tax paid on it (alcohol duty, plus VAT, a consumption tax). Tesco, the country's largest supermarket chain, called the measure “reasonable”.

Anti-alcohol campaigners are less enchanted. The proposal would require a minimum price of about 21p ($0.34) per unit of beer (hence 38p for a 440ml can of weak lager), or 28p per unit of spirits (eg, £8 for a 700ml bottle of whisky). Dr Ian Gilmore, of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, a pressure group, calls the move “a step in the right direction but…an extremely small step”. Don Shenker, of Alcohol Concern, thinks a minimum price of at least 40p per unit might begin to affect behaviour. Scotland's Parliament came close to adopting a 45p minimum last year (the proposal was voted down), and a much-discussed study in 2008 by academics at Sheffield University thought 50p was the lowest that should be contemplated.

But if imposing a minimum price on alcohol is the solution, what, precisely, is the problem? Per capita tippling in Britain is only the 12th-highest in the European Union, according to the World Health Organisation. Although British consumption has more than doubled over the past 50 years (thanks in part to plummeting costs, as determined drinkers tank up at home on cheap supermarket-bought liquor before heading out to club or pub), it is still lower than it was at the beginning of the last century. And the latest official figures suggest that drinking is already tapering off anyway: a bit less was imbibed in 2008 than before and sales of alcopops, the downfall of many a teenage girl, had slipped. More medicine was prescribed in 2009 to wean people off booze.

Against this possibly rosy view, campaigners point out that a lot of people in Britain, some 12%, are teetotal (starting with most Muslims, whose numbers are increasing), which means that those who do drink consume more than overall figures suggest. But the core of the argument is binge drinking: Britons may not down that much overall, but when they do, some run amok, and everything from violence to serious health problems result.

The incidence of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, falling in Spain, France and Italy, is rising in Britain. Almost 7,000 deaths in England in 2008 were directly attributable to alcohol, according to official figures; government attempts in 2003 to estimate the broader costs of excess drinking—to the NHS, to employers, to society in the form of anti-social behaviour—came up with over £15 billion, in 2001 prices.

Will this new minimum price change much? Perhaps not: many retailers say they charge more than the minimum now. But there are two reasons to think it might. Young drinkers are likeliest to be restrained by higher prices on cheap booze, and they are also likeliest to throw punches and get pregnant. And once the principle of a minimum price has been established, the government or its successors can raise it.